Car dealership software in Australia: DMS, lead routing and used car compliance

How does a dealer group’s software stack fit together?

A dealer group runs on a DMS, surrounded by OEM portals, a CRM, classifieds feeds and finance and insurance tools, and the joins between them are where leads and margin get lost. Each brand’s manufacturer has its own ordering, warranty and reporting portal. Classifieds such as carsales and Drive feed leads in. The DMS holds the deal, the stock and the service history.

System	Holds	Common gap
DMS (for example Pentana eraPower 5)	Stock, deals, parts, service, accounting	Group view across several DMS instances or brands
OEM portals	New vehicle orders, warranty claims, manufacturer reporting	Data locked per brand, rekeyed into the DMS
CRM	Leads, follow ups, customer history	Duplicates from multiple lead sources
Classifieds feeds	Listings and enquiries	Lead routing to the right site and salesperson
Finance and insurance tools	Credit applications, add on products	Evidence for deferral periods and disclosures

Most groups don’t need a new DMS. They need the pieces between these systems to work, which is integration work of the kind our API development service covers.

What does the agency model change?

Under an agency model, the manufacturer owns the new vehicle stock and sets the price, and the dealer is paid a fee to sell and deliver it. For systems, that moves stock holding out of the dealer’s books, replaces gross profit per new car with an agency fee, and changes commission plans for salespeople. A group that runs agency brands beside traditional franchises needs reporting that compares like with like: fee income, used car and finance margin, and service retention per brand. That is a reporting layer over the DMS and OEM data, not a new core system.

Which used car checks should software enforce?

Clear title, statutory warranty, defect notices and record keeping, all of which a checklist in the sales workflow can make hard to skip. The rules differ by state, so here are NSW and Victoria.

Statutory warranty. In NSW, a dealer guarantee applies to used vehicles under 10 years old with less than 160,000 km, for 3 months or 5,000 km, whichever comes first. New vehicles with under 15,000 km carry 12 months or 20,000 km. The guarantee doesn’t cover vehicles over 4.5 tonnes GVM. In Victoria, Consumer Affairs Victoria says a licensed motor car trader must give a statutory warranty on cars under 10 years old with less than 160,000 km, for 3 months or 5,000 km, and must list faults not covered on a defect notice. Age is set by the build plate date.

Trailers. NSW removed the dealer guarantee exemption for trailers and towable vehicles from 1 September 2026: 3 months for a secondhand one and 6 months for a new one, where it is no more than 10 years old.

Clear title. NSW Fair Trading says a dealer in secondhand vehicles must search the PPS Register by VIN or chassis number before selling. A clear search gives protection under the Personal Property Securities Act 2009 only if the VIN entered is correct. The same search also requests data from the National Exchange of Vehicle and Driver Information System, which can show written off and stolen status.

Consumer guarantees. Separately, the ACCC reminds dealers that Australian Consumer Law guarantees apply to new and secondhand cars bought from a licensed dealer, alongside any statutory and manufacturer warranties, and that buyers of new cars should receive the “Just bought a new car?” fact sheet at the point of sale.

A used car compliance checklist inside the deal might require:

• a PPSR certificate saved against the stock record, with the VIN matched to the vehicle
• warranty eligibility calculated from build date and odometer, printed on the contract
• a defect notice where required, signed by the buyer
• dealer notices kept for the full retention period
• an exception report for any deal that closed with a step missing

What changed for NSW dealers in 2025?

The Motor Dealers and Repairers Regulation 2025, from 1 September 2025, tightened online selling and record keeping. NSW Fair Trading lists these changes for dealers:

Rule	Detail
Notify online selling	At least 20 business days before starting, with website URL and NSW premises for storage and records
Website domain	Online dealers must use a URL ending in .au
Licence number	Shown on the website and in advertising
Inspection	Buyers can inspect before purchase and at delivery or collection
Deposit cap	Online dealers can take up to 10% of the price before the buyer takes possession
Cooling off	For dealer financed online sales, until 5 pm the next day
Dealer notices	Kept for 6 years from sale, up from 3

Online dealers had until 1 December 2025 to comply. For software, the deposit cap and inspection steps belong in the online checkout, and the 6 year retention belongs in your document storage policy.

How does the add on insurance pause work?

Add on insurance offered with a car is subject to ASIC’s deferred sales model: after the customer gets the required information, there is a deferral period that ends four days after it begins, before the sale can be completed. ASIC’s RG 275 sets out how this works, with exemptions including comprehensive motor vehicle insurance. ASIC gives motor vehicles as an example of a principal product with which consumer credit insurance, tyre and rim insurance and other insurances may be offered.

The deferred sales model implements recommendations of the Banking Royal Commission, and ASIC had earlier published a report calling the sale of add on insurance through car dealers a market that is failing consumers, so this is an area where a regulator is likely to ask for records.

Your finance and insurance workflow should record when the customer committed to the car and received the information, block completing the add on sale until the period ends, and keep the evidence. A business manager running this from a diary is a risk; a DMS or F&I tool that timestamps it is not.

How should leads route from carsales, Drive and OEM sites?

By rules that know brand, site, vehicle and salesperson availability, with a response target measured in minutes. Speed matters, but so does attribution. Groups spend heavily on classifieds and OEM lead programs, and without clean routing they can’t tell which source sells cars at which site. Each lead should carry its source, the vehicle or model enquired about, and every touch until the deal closes or dies, so the marketing manager can see cost per sale by source rather than cost per lead.

A lead router reads enquiries from each source, removes duplicates against the CRM, assigns the lead to the right site and person, sends an acknowledgement, and escalates if nobody responds. A simple version is a $20,000 to $50,000 build; our custom CRM cost guide covers the wider range.

Can the service department connect to sales?

Yes, and it is where repeat business comes from. Service history in the DMS shows which customers are near the end of a warranty, finance term or high odometer reading. A small integration can flag those customers to sales with consent and context. For the workshop side, see our mechanic workshop software page.

Where does AI help dealers?

AI helps with first response to leads, draft vehicle descriptions from verified data, and trade in valuation support. An AI agent can reply to an after hours enquiry with stock availability and book a test drive. Keep a person responsible for prices, condition claims and anything about finance, and log what the AI said.

What do dealer builds cost?

These are indicative AUD market ranges, ex GST, for planning, not quotes. They sit within the bands Expeed publishes for Australian custom software ($15,000 to $40,000 for simple tools, $40,000 to $150,000 for mid complexity systems).

Build	Indicative range
Lead routing and response automation	$20,000 to $50,000
Used car compliance checklist with DMS write back	$25,000 to $60,000
Group reporting across DMS instances and brands	$40,000 to $110,000

DMS integration terms are the biggest variable.

How AWLabs would approach a dealer project

We start with a Development Consult to find where leads, deals or compliance steps slip. A paid Discovery Audit then confirms what your DMS and OEM systems allow, and you get a fixed price Schedule of Work with three options: The Minimum, The Recommended and The Complete. Senior engineers lead every build, with updates every Tuesday and Friday during Sydney business hours.

We haven’t built for a dealership before, and we’ll say so. See our retail and ecommerce page for related work. This page is general information, not legal or financial advice.